1 - The Silence of Monsters: The Monsters Duet

Chapter 1

Channing

There was an old grandfather clock resting against one wall of the crowded antique and curio shop. No matter how often it was sent out for repairs, it always ran fast. The ticking of the hands perfectly matched the rapid beat of my heart and the unforgiving throb at my temples. The chime rang bright and clear, but it was always ten minutes before the hour.

I rubbed the center of my forehead out of frustration while the teenager standing across the counter nervously spun a diamond ring around her index finger. Those diamonds were a gift from her uncle, which meant they were undoubtedly real. And there was no practical reason for a thirteen-year-old girl to own such a pricey piece of jewelry. She couldn’t even keep track of her cellphone. Which was why she’d shown up at the shop where I worked with no warning.

“You have to call home and let them know where you are.” I blinked back the headache trying to ruin my day and watched my one-and-only niece through narrowed eyes. “If you don’t call your uncle, he’s going to report you missing. That’s going to get both of us in trouble.” I sighed and reached out, squishing her still round cheeks together so that she had no choice but to make a cute, kissy face. She still had enough baby fat on her face that I could see the carefree, sweet little girl she’d been lingering on her delicate features. “If your grandma tells law enforcement that I kidnapped you, I don’t know that either of us will convince them otherwise.” I squeezed her cheeks harder until she jerked her head away. Her green and gold eyes were so much like her mother’s. I always felt my heart twist painfully when our gazes locked. “Running away from home is dangerous, Winnie. You’re fortunate nothing happened to you while you were traveling to the city on your own.” I tried to sound stern and authoritative. However, I was neither of those things, and the warning fell flat.

The teenager rolled her eyes at me, but I could tell the mention of her grandmother made her nervous. “I told you; I lost my phone. I’ll call Uncle Chester and let him know I’m safe and that I’m with you. Don’t make me go back home right away, Aunt Channing. I hate it there.”

Winnie’s eyes welled with tears, and I could tell she was really at the end of her emotional rope. I swore under my breath and walked around the counter so I could give my niece a hug. She shuddered when I wrapped my arms around her and dropped her forehead to my shoulder. I patted her back and told her, “Don’t call your uncle Chester. You know how much he hates it.”

She sniffed loudly and muttered into the fabric of my shirt, “That’s what you call him.”

I barked out a dry laugh and tapped her on the back of the head. “I call him that because he and I are sworn enemies.” And as my sworn nemesis, there was little I could do to come out on top when it came to Winchester Halliday. The man was gratuitously wealthy, obnoxiously well connected, and had far too much power for one man. The only thing I could do to let him know I wasn’t afraid of him or envious of his gilded cage was to annoy him to death by treating him like he wasn’t in the top one percent of society. Using the part of his name he despised never failed to get under his skin.

I pulled away from the hug and reached into my bag that was sitting haphazardly on the counter. “I’ll call your Uncle Win. Let me tell the boss I have to leave early. I’ll take you to my apartment and feed you while we figure out the next step.” I sighed again and reached out to smooth her tangled hair back off her face. “You have to go back, Winnie.”

There was no room for false hope when dealing with the Hallidays.

I could tell Winnie was going to cry, so I shuffled her to the small break room at the back of the store while I went in search of my boss.

I liked my job because it was easy and interesting. I enjoyed researching all the odds and ends that came through the door, and it was fun telling some customers that they had found buried treasure. It was also the job I’d held onto the longest while living in the city. My boss was a retired history professor who had a fascination with all things dark and macabre. It was like working for Dracula. He was an intense character, but pretty easygoing. When I told him I had a family emergency and needed to leave, he didn’t bat an eye. When I mentioned I might need to take a few days off to deal with a personal issue, all he did was tilt his head and tell me to let him know if I needed his help with anything. I promised him I would keep him in the loop. Then, I found a quiet corner to call Winnie’s uncle, my only brother-in-law, who just happened to be my second least favorite person in the world.

The grandfather clock chimed, making me jump. The ticking sounded like a countdown to something inexplicably dangerous. I closed my eyes and mentally braced myself as the phone rang.

I wasn’t kidding when I told Winnie her uncle and I were enemies. The only person I hated more than him — was her grandmother. All the Hallidays, aside from my niece, were awful. Somewhere along the line, the entire family had foregone humanity and basic decency. I wouldn’t put it past them to have made a pact with the devil. Why not exchange their souls for unlimited money and power? It’s not like they would ever need them. The entire family never showed grace to those they didn’t consider beneficial to them?. I definitely had nothing to offer the likes of Winchester Halliday, so there was zero guarantee he would answer my call. If he didn’t, I would just have to bite the bullet and call his mother, Colette Halliday. Even though I’d rather eat glass than speak to Winnie’s grandmother.

Luckily, a deep and impatient voice answered the call. “What do you want, Harvey? I’m very busy.”

From the time we first met, Win called me by my last name. Sometimes I wondered if he didn’t know what my first name was. My fingers tightened on the cellphone as I took a deep breath to calm my nerves. “Do you have any idea that Winnie is missing?”

Win swore, and I heard him snapping orders to whomever was in the room with him. “I’ve had people out looking for her for the last four hours. She had a piano lesson after class today. She called and told her instructor she was sick. I didn’t realize she was missing until her teacher called to check on her and asked how she was feeling.” He swore again and I could hear the frustration in his tone. “I’ve been trying to keep my mother from calling the FBI. I trusted my people to locate her in a timely manner. I should’ve known she was with you.”

There was no relief in his tone. Only irritation and impatience.

“She showed up at the store where I work out of the blue. I wasn’t expecting her. Winnie told me she had a friend drive her to the train station. She lost her phone on the train. When she got to the central station in the city, she walked around until she found someone who had an idea where my store was located. I’m going to take her home with me for now.” I snorted and snapped at him, “She’s begging not to go back to your house, Chester.”

“She’s a teenager. She doesn’t know what she wants.” I heard the rustling of fabric as he moved. “I’m sending people to your place to get her. They’ll be there in a couple of hours.”

“That’s a bad idea. If you send your black-suit brigade to drag her back against her will, she might run again when she gets the chance. Next time she might not come to me. What are you going to do if she really disappears and gets herself into a dangerous situation? Back off for a couple of days. Let me talk to her. I’ll bring her home when she’s not as upset and irrational as she is right now.”

“No. She has school and lessons. Unlike you, Winnie will follow through with her responsibilities. You’re the last person she needs to spend time with.” His words were biting and harsh, but they were nothing I hadn’t heard from him before. He always made his disdain for me and my lifestyle abundantly clear.

“You’re being unreasonable, Chester. She came to me for a reason. You and your mother are more concerned with turning her into a perfect Halliday than you are with her wellbeing. I understand wanting Winnie to be responsible and accountable, but she’s just a kid. Let her have a childhood.” And some fun. I didn’t add the last part because I wasn’t certain that Win knew what fun was.

When Winnie was younger, I still lived near Halliday Cove. The Halliday family founded the small, coastal town back when their ancestors landed on the coast. I was allowed to see my niece more frequently back then, even though Colette tried everything in her power to keep the little girl away from her relatives who weren’t named Halliday.

However, when Winnie got older and started exhibiting troubling behavior and major signs of distress, Colette called a child psychologist. The specialist recommended it would be best if Winnie could have contact with her mother’s side of the family to benefit from spending time with people who knew and loved her deceased mother. Among them, I was the only living relative who wasn’t deemed a risk to the little girl.

As Winnie got older and her issues stabilized, the Hallidays, namely Colette, once again did whatever they could to cut me out of my niece’s life. In the last few years, I’d only seen her a handful of times. Each visit, I could tell she was turning more and more into a copy-and-paste version of Win. The similarities made sense since he was her primary guardian, but I wanted more in life for her. Win was miserable. I didn’t want Winnie to see the world in the same bleak, boring way he did.

Win scoffed on the other end of the call. “Of course, you think I’m depriving Winnie of a proper childhood because I want her to be accountable and responsible. She should end up like you, bouncing from job to job? Do you want her to treat getting married and divorced like it’s a hobby? Do you want her living paycheck-to-paycheck because she has no financial awareness like you? You’re a terrible role model, Harvey.”

I wanted to reach through the phone and wrap my hands around his neck. Not because he was incorrect, but because he was just so arrogant and dismissive about my existence. I hated how he talked to me, and how he looked down on me.

“At least I’m not unhappy day in and day out. It doesn’t take a genius to tell Winnie is terribly upset. You’re raising her. It’s your job to make sure her life is full and celebrated. She’s a human being, not a robot. And not your pet.” She would never be a Halliday clone if I had a say in the matter. I kept the last part to myself. Because if there was one line I wouldn’t cross with him, it was anything to do with his mother.

I was never sure if Win was so touchy about his family because they were the only people he loved in the world, or because he hated them as much as he loathed everyone else. The man was an iceberg, which made him very tough to read. In all the years I’d known him, I don’t think I’d ever seen him smile or laugh. It was no surprise Winnie felt like she had to run away from that suffocating atmosphere.

I leaned my head back and banged it on the wall in frustration. “If you won’t let her stay with me for a few days, then the very least you can do is come and get her yourself. If she’s feeling trapped and frustrated, the last thing she needs is to get hauled back to the Cove by your goons. Stop treating her like a subordinate and start treating her like your niece.”

I hung up the call before I said something I might regret.

Mostly, Win and I stayed in our respective bubbles and didn’t interact. We had no reason to. And since we easily enraged each other, there was no point. It was never far from my mind that if I spoke to the man the way I really wanted to and told him what I honestly thought about him and the way he was raising my niece, he could ruin me. The Hallidays had the means and mindset to crush the life out of anyone who wronged them with a mere phone call. Getting on Win’s bad side was never the best idea. Since I lived there permanently, I walked on eggshells around him to make sure I never pushed my luck so far that there was no coming back.

When I went back to the break room, I found my niece munching on snacks and holding a can of soda. It looked like my boss did his best to cheer her up and make her comfortable while I argued with Win.

I took a seat across from the teenager and forced a smile. “I talked to your uncle. He’s worried about you.”

Winnie snorted and rolled her eyes. “I bet he didn’t even know I was gone. He’s always working. He’s so busy, I haven’t seen his face for more than a couple of minutes in months.”

I cursed the man silently and reached out to bop the end of her nose. “You need to tell him you want to spend time with him. Running away doesn’t solve the problem.”

“You can’t tell me you believe that Uncle Win listens to anyone. You know him better than that.”

I let out a rough laugh. “You’re right. I don’t think he cares what anyone has to say. But you aren’t anyone, Winnie.” She was his family, a Halliday, which made her special.

Winnie made a face, showing she did not believe a word of what I just said. She took a drink of the sugary soda and set the can down on the table in front of her. “I’m sorry I showed up here unannounced. I remember where your old apartment is, but last time we talked, you told me you moved. You always move. I didn’t know where to look for you, Aunt Channing.” I wasn’t sure if she knew how much she’d just sounded like her uncle. I could hear Win in her accusatory tone.

“I’m sorry. I should’ve made sure you had my new address.” I moved more often than the average thirty-five-year-old woman.

I jumped into new relationships with both feet and a blind heart. I always optimistically believed whomever I was with would be the one. Which left me without a roof over my head once the relationship ended. I didn’t get married and divorced like it was a hobby, as Win suggested. However, I had two ex-husbands. I married and divorced both when I was too young to know better. After the trauma of those relationships, I now changed boyfriends as frequently as others changed the oil in their cars, trying to find my idea of happily ever after. My New Year’s resolution for this year, after I hit my mid-thirties, was to stay single until my birthday. So far, I managed to stick to it. For the first time in forever, I was living on my own, in a place I could afford with my sole income. It was the most responsible I’d felt in a long time, which made Win’s dismissive words toward me even more infuriating.

“Come on.” I shook off the dark mood that always followed conversations with Win and focused on my niece. “Let’s go to my apartment. We can figure out a way to handle your Uncle Chester on the way.”

Winnie laughed and followed me out of the fun, quirky store. “He hates it to death when you call him that.”

I grinned down at her. “I know.” I wrapped my arm around her thin shoulders as we walked toward my small apartment. “Do you want to tell me why it was suddenly so bad at home that you left without telling anyone?” She had always lived a life controlled down to the minute. The tradeoff was that she grew up with privilege only a handful of people would ever experience. Winnie had the very best of everything at her fingertips. Even if I didn’t like Win and his mother, I couldn’t argue that they gave Winnie a wealth of opportunities and experiences. As a teenager, she’d already been to Rome and Paris. I rarely ventured far from the East Coast.

She sniffed and looked down at the dirty sidewalk. “I hate it there. There are so many rules. There’s no privacy. Their expectations are too high. I failed an advanced math class, and Grandma told me she was looking into private schools overseas for me. I don’t feel like playing the piano. I don’t want to learn ballet. I don’t even know what a cotillion is, but she’s making me attend classes for one. I’m tired, Aunt Channing.” She gave her head a small shake and muttered, “Plus, I think that house is haunted. It gives me the creeps.”

I pulled her into a tight side hug and dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “That is a lot.” It was too much. I agreed with her. “What do you mean, you think the house is haunted?”

My older sister and Win’s younger brother had passed away in a fire that ravaged their wing of the Halliday estate when Winnie was just a baby. I always thought it was an awful idea for the remaining family to rebuild and move on. They acted as if the tragedy had never happened. Of course, they would never leave the sprawling, opulent property that had been in their family for generations. It didn’t surprise me that Winnie felt spooked about staying under the same roof where her parents died.

“I keep hearing things. Thumps and bumps that sound like someone is hiding in the walls. And I swear, the other day when I was studying, I could hear someone singing. I looked in every room and wandered around the entire estate, but I couldn’t find where the sound was coming from. Grandma told me that I was making excuses to avoid studying. Uncle Win told me the house is hundreds of years old, so it’s going to make noises.”

I begrudgingly nodded in agreement. “I think your uncle is probably right. Old houses like that make strange noises. They moan and groan and even whistle. That’s how they speak their history. I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”

Winnie sighed and shrugged her shoulders at my reassurance. She changed the subject so fast that I had to scramble to keep up with her.

“Grandma wants Uncle Win to get married. She keeps telling me he’s getting too old to start a family. She’s harping on him to settle down and have kids. He never responds to her, so she started inviting all these different women over for these fancy dinners and ambushing him with blind dates. Dinnertime was the only time Uncle Win would put down work and spend some normal time with me. Now, he rarely comes home before midnight. It’s so awkward and uncomfortable. I just want a regular family.”

“I hate to break it to you, kid, but there is no such thing as a regular family.”

Just look at mine.

My older sister was gone. My mother was institutionalized. My father was God knows where, shacked up with God knows who. Even though he and my mother were still very much married. I’d mostly been on my own since I was a teenager. Which is why I let myself fall in love so easily. I was always trying to fill in the holes in my heart that my fractured family left behind.

“You’re too young to realize that all the privilege you have now is going to ensure not only you, but whomever you bring into your life, have a promising future. It’s much better to have too much than not enough, Winnie.”

She sniffed again and wrapped her arm around my waist. “But all I want is my mom and dad.”

Her words stabbed into the center of my chest. I felt tears sting my eyes as I pulled her closer. “I know, sweetie. I wish more than anything that’s something I could give you.”

Even with all the money and connections in the world, it was impossible for Winchester Halliday to bring the dead back to life. If he could, he would resurrect his younger brother in a heartbeat.

We were equally helpless to give our niece the thing she desperately wanted above all else. That was the only commonality we shared.